ARCHBISHOP Desmond Tutu has lambasted Africa leaders for their failure to criticise Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe, writes Ellen Teague. According to Archbishop Tutu, an outspoken champion of human rights, he and his fellow Africans should "hang our heads in shame" at the suppression of opposition protest in Zimbabwe.

In a 16 March statement, the Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and Nobel laureate condemned Africa's leaders' silence in the face of the police violence in Harare on 11 March, when opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and many others were injured. "Do we care about human rights, do we care that people of flesh and blood, fellow Africans, are  treated like rubbish, almost worse than they were ever treated by rabid racists?" he said.

South Africa is under pressure for a bolder response to the Mugabe tyranny. Archbishop Tutu's rebuke followed a statement by the Congress of South African Trade Unions, saying that events in Zimbabwe showed that South Africa's policy of "quiet diplomacy" had not worked. On Tuesday Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo told the country's SAFM Radio that South Africa is "in the best position to put pressure on Zimbabwe".

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